An insight on public health

Literarily
from the word "public health", a lay man can ordinarily say it is the
aspect of health that deals with the general public. From the two words, they
are appear self-explanatory. In this post i shall be taking you a little bit
deep, i.e. i shall be giving you an insight of what public health is all about.
The knowledge derived after going through this post will serve as a plus to the
basics you have already known about public health.

Definition of public health

First of
all, take a look at the definition of public health:

Public
health is defined as the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life
and promoting health through organized efforts and informed choices of society,
organizations, public and private, communities and individuals.

The key
points from the definition are:

It is a
science and art: Meaning it is not just based on theory, it involves action too

Prevention
of disease: It's program is based on disease prevention

Then the
last one is that it involves organised effort from both the organisations
involved and the general society.

Conclusively,
we can say that public health public health involves the protecting and
improvement of the health of families and communities through the promotion of
healthy lifestyles, and also by conducting research for disease prevention,
then the detection and control of infectious disease. In all, the main concern
of public health is to protect the health of an entire population. These
populations could be as little as a village or as big as an entire country, or
the whole wide world in particular.

Public health approaches

Public
health incorporates the interdisciplinary approaches of epidemiology,
biostatistics and health services. Environmental health, community health,
behavioural health, health economics, public policy, insurance medicine. Mental health and occupational safety and
health are other important subfields.

The focus of public health

You have
seen the definition of public health and a little insight of what it means. You
have also gotten an idea about it modes of approach, now the next question will
be, what is the main focus of public health? Read on!

Public
health intervention have a major and direct focus, and which is to improve
health and quality of life.

How can this
improvement of the quality of life be achieved?

It can be
achieved through prevention and treatment of disease and other physical and
mental health conditions. This is done by carrying out surveillance of cases
and health indicators, and also by the promotion of healthy behaviours.

Teams or officers involved in public health

The modern
public health practice encompasses multidisciplinary teams of public health
workers and professionals. They include:

Physicians
who are specialized in public health/community health medicine/infectious
diseases.

Psychologists

Epidemiologists

Biostatisticians

Medical
assistants/Assistant medical officers

Public
health nurses and midwives

Medical
Microbiologists

Environmental
health officers

Public
health inspectors

Pharmacists

Dentists

Dieticians
and Nutritionists

Veterinarians

Public
health engineers

Public
health lawyers

Sociologists

Community
development workers

Communications
experts

Bioethicists

And the list
goes on!

Organisations involved in public
health

The world
health organisation (WHO) is the international agency that coordinates and acts
on public health issues in whole world. Most countries, therefore, have their
own government public health agencies (known as the Ministry of health) which
responds to domestic health issues. Various Non-governmental Organisations can
also be found in different countries of the world, all thriving towards the health
and safety of the populace.

In
conclusion, Public health plays an important role in disease prevention
efforts, both in the developed and developing countries. And just like i have
stated before, the two systems involved are both the local health systems and
non-governmental organisations.

An insight on public health
Reviewed by Chibuzor Aguwa
on
8/17/2016 01:45:00 pm
Rating: 5